Lynette Louw

To get to know someone of a different country and learn about their customs and traditions is a privilege that not many teenagers have. For years Rotary has made this possible through the Rotary Youth Exchange Programme.

As reported in a previous edition of Barberton Times seven learners of Barberton High School applied to become exchange students this year. Four of them hosted students from Germany and Hungary this month. The other youths will visit Barberton in January 2011 from Argentina and Brazil.

Lennart Knoche and Patrick Klesse hail from Germany and Zoltan Deak-Ilko and Tamas Voczik from Hungary. They have been staying with Anje Niemand, Reenen Louw, Franscois Ferreira and Leanne Menge and accompanied them to Barberton High School. With other exchange students from Gauteng and Mpumalanga the four and also joined a tour group that visited Kruger National Park, Hoedspruit, Sabie, White River and Sudwala.

Zoltan even joined the musical production, Dream Works, the high school presented last week.

Besides learning more of our country and more specific Barberton and the Lowveld region our youths will have the opportunity during December to go and see how they live.

The Barberton pupils are busy raising funds for their trip overseas to add to the funds sponsored by the Rotary Club. They would like to extend their gratitude to businesses and individuals that have already assisted them.

Their next fund raiser is a day night golf tournament planned for August 20. Don’t miss out on this fun evening.

Lennart Knoche, Zoltan Deak-Ilko, Tamas Voczik and Patrick Klesse learn how the early prospectors panned for gold